Partisan Bias in Polls

[Jacob]

Apparently people answer factual questions differently based on their affiliation; but when they have a chance to benefit from giving factually correct answers the partisan bias decreases significantly.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/55494.html

[Jacob]

A bit more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/03/if-you-pay-them-money-partisans-will-tell-you-the-truth/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

[Eddie Teach]

Most of the questions mentioned are ones I wouldn't expect most people to actually know.

[Admiral Yi]

Most of the questions mentioned are ones I wouldn't expect most people to actually know.

The WMD one is a gimme.  Inflation falling under Reagan is close to a gimme.

[Jacob]

Most of the questions mentioned are ones I wouldn't expect most people to actually know.

The WMD one is a gimme.  Inflation falling under Reagan is close to a gimme.

... but even if it isn't, you can answer "I don't know" instead of whatever answer supports your party.

[Eddie Teach]

Inflation falling under Reagan is close to a gimme.

Maybe in 1988 it was. Though I'm not even sure about that. Inflation rate is a wonky thing that normal people aren't going to know unless they read a news story about it. They notice when food or gas prices go up, but even there they won't keep track of how much it went up this year vs how much it was going up 5 years ago.

[merithyn]

This part kind of frightens me.

Subsequent research found that correcting these kinds of errors actually made the situation worse. Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth and Jason Reifler of Georgia State found that Republicans presented with news articles pointing out that there were no WMDs in Iraq were more likely to say that such weapons were found than Republicans who didn't read those articles. The truth, in other words, triggered a partisan backlash.

[Berkut]

Apparently people answer factual questions differently based on their affiliation; but when they have a chance to benefit from giving factually correct answers the partisan bias decreases significantly.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/55494.html

Normally, I would agree with such an article, but I was recently told by someone on the internet that people don't in fact respond to such survey's based on what they want to be true, rather than what they actually think, so I know it must be wrong.

[crazy canuck]

Apparently people answer factual questions differently based on their affiliation; but when they have a chance to benefit from giving factually correct answers the partisan bias decreases significantly.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/06/55494.html

Normally, I would agree with such an article, but I was recently told by someone on the internet that people don't in fact respond to such survey's based on what they want to be true, rather than what they actually think, so I know it must be wrong.

You were told that researchers can control for this kind of bias in well designed research projects.  Ignoring that fact is good evidence of the kind of bias reported in this article.

[Berkut]

Why in the world would you assume I was talking about your double secret academic study that you could not actually provide a source for?

That one doesn't even rise to the level of an actual study or poll - it is just something that you apparently kind of recall from back in the day that was so persuasive it never even got published anywhere that is accessible via electrons.

[crazy canuck]

Why in the world would you assume I was talking about your double secret academic study that you could not actually provide a source for?

If all knowledge was reduced to only links that can be provided to attack dogs on languish the world would be poorer indeed.

[Berkut]

That might be true, but THIS particular knowledge would make the world a better place if it actually existed in some form outside your brain.

That is the nature of knowledge - it is so much more useful when it exists in some actual form that people can access. Otherwise, it is just faith.

And I don't have much faith in your ability to reasonably respond to my questions about how the double secret study was done and its conclusions that just so happen to perfectly fit what you needed them to fit...